Our Vision

A flourishing and sustainable arts environment that is open, inclusive and equitable.

Our Goal

To collaboratively develop a replicable and sustainable plan that creates new pathways for ALAANA people to arts organizations at all levels.

Enrich Chicago History & Background

In 2014, a collective of directors of prominent local cultural institutions began a collaborative process to address racial equity in arts leadership. With initial support from the Joyce Foundation, "Enrichers," as we would soon call ourselves, worked with human behavior designers from Spark Design Strategies to examine the policies and systems within each arts organization.

At the end of the process with the human behavior designers, Enrichers decided the concepts were shiny and new but not rooted in racial equity. To get to the heart of the issue and focus our work, Enrich Chicago partnered with well-respected anti-racism organizers from the People’s Institute for Survival & Beyond and underwent the Undoing Racism® Community Organizing Workshop. This training proved deeply influential in developing our purpose and plan, offering a shared framework and lens through which we see our work.

Enrich Chicago currently exists as a cohort of 20 arts and philanthropic organizations that are committed to anti-racist organizing within the arts. As a group, we are attempting to dig deeper into ourselves, our organizations, and our community to uncover the systemic racism that hobbles the field of public culture in America.Through bi-monthly partner meetings, affinity space gathering, providing Undoing Racism® workshops for community leaders, and other programming, we have chosen to go beyond typical diversity and cultural sensitivity models to truly address the need for equity within our field. Enrichers have dedicated extensive amounts of time and financial resources to develop a collective vision and plan to address the issues and dismantle current racist structures to create new systems of collaboration and equitable arts spaces.

Angelique Power, President of the Field Foundation of Illinois, addressed the attendees of the One State Together in the Arts 2015 conference on the beginnings of Enrich Chicago and racial equity in the arts.